State Attorney General Herring has announced that he’s cancelling reciprocity agreements with 25 states. Those agreements allow permitted nonresidents to carry concealed firearms in Virginia. The justification is that those 25 states have more “lax” gun laws than Virginia and that the measure will keep dangerous criminals from bringing guns into the Commonwealth.
Right. Because dangerous criminals go through the trouble to get carry permits. Essentially, he’s punishing the people who’ve done nothing wrong, which is pretty much the central tenet of the gun-control approach.
Worse yet, he doesn’t need the approval of the legislature to do this. It just takes a pen stroke. Hopefully, state lawmakers will intervene, but that remains to be seen.
It’s not a novel strategy. The President himself has threatened to bypass Congress in a similar fashion, though his legal authority to do so is questionable at best. On one hand, the reluctance of lawmakers (who represent the wishes of their constituents) shows that the public doesn’t support gun control. Continued...